The Harbinger: It Begins

In the humblest of spaces where the reportedly important are loathe to go we find truth, meaning, and value. In a world ripped apart by violence, anger, hate, and incivility all powered by greed, God arrives in the simplest guise of all. God’s arrival is the greatest of all messages, even when we miss the point. As much as we portray ourselves as important, superior, and greater than any and all others, the Greatest of all enters our midst with no semblance of fanfare.

As far as anyone in Chickasaw knew, it was another night like any other. Nothing special was going on that evening, unless you count a newborn baby’s cry. There was nothing of note in most of the ways we consider something important. The newborn did not cry out in a sterile hospital delivery room. There were no doctors or nurses attending in scrubs. We’ll never know its Apgar scores. No one recorded weight, length, race, or footprints. The only people to know of this baby’s birth should have been the very few in those close quarters tucked away from polite society.

It wasn’t even a barn. This was an abandoned lean-to in the woods, forgotten by most anyone who had ever known of its existence. It was an out-of-the-way place near the railroad tracks, hidden from the sight of any commercial center. Being hidden away was probably the most special thing about this meager escape from the elements. People not knowing about it made it useful.

Police sweeps had torn down the tents in the nearby encampment where they had sheltered. This shack was all the hospitality Wilma could offer these bedraggled strangers in need. Wilma had been here before and she took Nicky under her wing when the community had to flee the camp when the municipal government had cracked down on the visible existence of people without proper housing.

Nicky had been minding her own business when the seer had found her. Looking deep in her eyes with no preamble, she had said, “There's something unexpected ahead of you. You will birth a child and they will bring about the revolution our people have long needed and for which they have long cried. This child born to you will come through God’s intervention. God's hand and breath will remain on them, and through them humanity will become whole as they should have always been.”

The woman had walked away, leaving not so much as a name. Nicky had been too shocked by her proclamation to really notice her departure. Those strange words had hung around, however, claiming hold of Nicky’s attention, sounding on repeat in the monologue between her ears. She didn't know how to process such words, but they were nothing she would ever forget.

That was a year ago. Back then, Nicky’d had a family. She’d had a regular place to stay. She’d expected to finish high school, marry, get a job, move out, and maybe get married. There were no great options or opportunities ahead of her. Born into a life of basic survival, much more than subsistence would have been a pipe dream, and that was without being an unhoused, teenage mother.

Braden had knocked her up, but he'd stood by her, despite the hurdles facing a pair of teens who hadn’t even finished school. Kicked out of home as failures for being unwed and pregnant didn’t help anything. They'd escaped the gangs who saw her as an easy target on the streets back in Saturn. Her folks were ashamed of her, as Braden’s were of him. Moving out had been a relief for all the family.

They had made their way to Chickasaw, but rent there was impossible and jobs were not easy to come by and hardly made ends meet. The only support they’d found was among the community at the tent encampment. When the police raided it, Wanda took them to this shack not too far away in a patch of overlooked woods. When labor pains set in, getting to a hospital was out of the question. The hospital in Chickasaw had long shut down, and the closest labor and delivery center was almost two hundred miles away. It might as well have been two thousand.

Nicky was scared, but Braden stayed by her and had found Kelisha to step in as a midwife. She'd had a few children of her own and had helped with a birth last month when they had first arrived at the encampment in Chickasaw. Thankfully, there was seemingly more looking out for each other within the encampment community than they had experienced or expected from life back in Saturn.

There was no nursery prepared to receive the child. Their few belongings gathered in preparation to receive their child had been ripped away and trashed in the raid, along with Jackson’s crutches and Sadie’s violin. Someone had given them a relatively clean T-shirt to wrap the baby in against the cold. There was no baby crib, but there was an old grain crib in the shelter, formerly used to feed some kind of stock. With gathered pine straw for bedding, Braden lay the newborn to sleep, as Kelisha worked to clean Nicky up and dispose of the afterbirth to keep away critters seeking food in the coming night.

Before night had settled in deeply, they had some unexpected visitors. A few Latinos from a migrant work camp walked up, looking for them. Somehow, this immigrant work crew who could barely speak English, knew of the birthing that night and had come to welcome the child into the world. If she’d understood them correctly, they were seeking a newborn in a lean to in the wooded area near the train tracks and old water tower. They claimed this baby to be God's gift for all peoples, bringing peace and demonstrating God's love for everyone everywhere.

She couldn’t really understand the lyrics, but they filled the woods with joyous song as they left. Nicky was still too stunned from birthing to absorb the meaning of their greeting. This night had come shortly on the tail of their departure from home and their subsequent flight from the encampment. The words of the seer from a year before came back in haunting clarity. How had these immigrant workers gotten word of this birth when no one outside the shack should have known anything, not to mention the language barrier?

A lot had been going on in their lives, but this visit and greeting gave Nicky and Braden plenty to chew on over the coming weeks and years. Could the words of that seer and now these migrant workers truly have meaning for them and this child from her womb? Shouldn’t God have chosen a more noble and important family, one who could actually provide for this baby’s needs? They didn’t even know what they would eat tomorrow, much less how they could provide for their now growing family.

Over the last months, they had talked about baby names. They had discussed honoring their respective families and ethnic backgrounds. They had pondered names breaking ties with family who had turned them out. With the words of the Seer ringing in the wake of the visit of these immigrant strangers, they finally made up their minds. They named the child Yahshua, the restoration, redemption, or rescue wrought by Yahweh. It was a name they had toyed with, but it fit exceedingly well with the message conveyed on this night. On this child might well hang the hope for restoring all of humanity to the fullness of God’s purposes for humanity from the beginning of creation. Yahshua resonated with the words of the seer and the foreign workers. If God were present here, there really is hope for all.

— ©Copyright 2025, Christopher B. Harbin 

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